50 Teens 4 Christmas

Last night I officially announced the next FoodLove event, 50 Teens 4 Christmas to be held for homeless and vulnerable teens at ROOF. Since then, I (and my amazing friend and chief smilemaker at 5 Dollar Project, Jodi) have been working non-stop.

What started as a regular FoodLove event with lots of homemade goodies, a mini concert and a few gift cards has turned into a MASSIVE event involving the same homemade goodies, motivational speakers, a fundraising raffle (of which proceeds will be split between 5 Dollar Project and 50 Teens 4 Christmas), gifts bags stuffed to the brim and more! I can't thank Jodi enough for her hard work and using the many, many contacts and friendships she has to make this project so awesome.

We are looking for donations specifically for the Christmas gift bags right now. We want to give these kids slightly used or new jackets, sweatshirts, toques, mittens, long distance phone cards, gift cards to go shopping, easily transportable and healthy food, personal hygiene products and REAL Christmas gifts like books, makeup and other things that all normal teens want.

We would love to see Waterloo Region rally around us and give these teens a Christmas to remember. You can do this by collecting items for the gift bags, asking your workplace for donations for our fundraising raffle, buying a raffle ticket (will be available soon!), spreading the word AND buying Christmas cards and getting them signed by as many people as you can!

Watch the #50teens4christmas hashtag and follow @FoodLoveKW and @5dollarproject on Twitter to keep up with all the latest details.

With all of our resources, we can make this a Christmas to remember!

What I learned at SCCTO

So over the last 2 days I was at the She's Connected Conference in Toronto. It's a conference to connect bloggers and brands, to learn how to work with each other, what to do and not do and a whole lot of information for those bloggers or brands who haven't done this kind of promotional work together before.

Now I posted a while back about whether or not I would go because I was pretty sure that I didn't want to be writing sponsored posts for companies on my blog. I questioned whether it was a selling-out point and I believe even referred to it as "whoring" myself out. A lot of intelligent discussion convinced me to go and give it a try. So what did I learn?

1. I still DON'T want to accept free stuff or money for myself or family from companies to shill their product. It's not that there's anything wrong with it for those that do it, but I'm already busy trying to promote my OWN brand and business (need a cake, buy it here!) and I don't have the energy to give myself to another company when I'm barely making enough money from my own to survive. Just not for me.

2. I DO want to work with brands when it comes to my volunteer work. As some of the events I'm working on get bigger and bigger I'm starting to recruit sponsors and some companies would mesh really well with them. If Ford wants to lend me a truck to cart around the bags upon bags of goodies for a FoodLove event, I would be ecstatic! To me that's working for the greater good. The brand is getting promoted, I'm getting promoted, my charity is getting promoted and MOST IMPORTANTLY, local people, people in my very own backyard are reaping the benefits and kindness. This is a win-win.

3. I DO want to look at my own options, as a brand, of working with bloggers and influential women to promote my business. Let's face it, women talk. Women buy what other women buy. I make affordable, unique custom cakes and need business from women. No brainer.

Also, because this was my first ever big conference, I learned a few other things that weren't on the agenda:

• band-aids should be carried at all times
• it doesn't matter if you can fit everything in a duffel bag, bring a suitcase on wheels
• it's a lot of fun to tweet with someone sitting 4 ft away from you
• you will be hugged a lot, be prepared
• pay the damn money and stay in a hotel, the subway at midnight is not fun

and

• even friendships you already had will become more concrete by the time it's done

Thank you for having me join the conference, She's Connected team. I'm not sure if my experience had the outcome you were hoping for but I had fun, I met some fabulous women AND I got a night away, which is no easy feat for a mom!

Also, thanks to Toshiba Canada, I won a laptop at the event! I'm super excited and was really looking forward to receiving it but this morning I decided that there was someone else who needed it more.

Volunteer Builders is an Oakville, ON organization that designs and builds "one project every spring to benefit a worthy individual or organization". All of their builds since 2001 have involved summer camps and all the buildings are beautiful. A few days ago a tweet came to my attention that Volunteer Builders needs a laptop for the organization. They were asking for a used laptop or donations towards buying a new one. So I decided to donate the laptop from Toshiba to them. It's a worthy organization made even better that friends of mine are involved in the project.

The love I've received from Twitter today has been amazing. It's undeserved, I think. I'm not putting myself out by donating this laptop, I'm not giving up anything I needed. I'm just passing along the niceness of Toshiba along to someone who wants (and needs) that laptop even more than I do. So thank you, Toshiba, for giving me the opportunity to help Volunteer Builders. Volunteer Builders, thank you for the awesome work you do. I'll be contacting you about volunteering for your next build. And thank you Twitter, for sending me so much love today in regards to the laptop donation and then again, when I asked you all to donate blankets and sweaters for me to hand out to the homeless. The amount that you have already donated and have promised to donate over the next few weeks will soon have me traveling to find people in need in other cities. The love from my online community today has lifted me higher and reminded me that I'm not changing the world alone... I have thousands of people cheering me on, supporting me and kicking my butt into gear!

Melissa

A Theme and A Purpose

All my life I have been an activist, a volunteer, a community supporter. Throughout elementary school I was a tutor, a reading buddy, a dog walker at the Humane Society and a letter writer for Amnesty International. In high school I was on school council, I organized coffee houses, I organized volunteers to "green" our school and build a rock garden and each year I was a driving force behind the 30-hour famine. As I've grown into adulthood I've been a church volunteer, a "listener" at a battered women's shelter, an advocate for special needs children, part of a team that feeds the homeless in our area and the girl who gives out cookies in exchange for smiles.

I'm not telling you this because I'm looking for attention or accolades. I'm telling you this because I've finally realized what my life (and subsequently, this blog) is all about.

My life's purpose is to bless and serve other people.

When I started this blog, I had a few things I wanted to write down but I had no idea if my blog would have a theme or if it would just be insane ramblings of me. It's natural that people would think I would write a food blog but I'm not organized enough for that. I forget to take pictures of some of the most incredible cakes I've ever made, I'll never remember to take pics during the cooking process. So where does that leave a girl who wants to blog but who often proclaims that the only thing she knows is food?

She searches herself and gains enough confidence to realize that she knows MUCH MUCH more than food. She knows people, she's got a soft heart that cries whenever she reads the news and she has a determination to make her world a better place.

So from this moment on, although I'm sure there will be the odd random post, this blog will become my way to help others, help others. You will read stories about amazing people doing amazing things. You will read stories about folks who need a hand up and most importantly, I will help you find a way to make your own contribution to causes that are important to you. If you have money to give, I'll help you get it there. If you have spare blankets I'll collect them and personally hand them out to the homeless on the street. If you always happen to bake 2 dozen cookies too many, I will help you hand them out to people who really need a smile in their day.

So if you know an amazing community builder, if you know a story that needs a voice, if you know a person that needs help finding their smile again, let me know. I am here to serve.